


of saturday secrets and maybe-babies

by catarinquar



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Episode: s07e02 The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, Episode: s08e13 Per Manum, F/M, Fluff, IVF arc, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 17:30:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catarinquar/pseuds/catarinquar
Summary: The diamond he chose may have been unconventional, but his little red-haired shortstop hit for .400, got giggly on tequila, and kissed the life out of him in front of God and everybody. Since September they've been seeing each other, staying over, sleeping together, well, the thing is - the thing is, they've been making her a baby in a petri dish.-post-amor fati. mulder is figuring some things out while they attempt IVF around thanksgiving ‘99.





	of saturday secrets and maybe-babies

**Author's Note:**

> written as part of [sportstar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16278584); could be its own AU.

At the end of October, Maggie had not yet invited him for Thanksgiving.

She asked him in ‘94, after Scully was returned. She’s asked him every year since then, lets Scully relay the invitation at least three times before November rolls around, though of course he’s never accepted. He doesn’t want to intrude, doesn’t want to make it awkward, doesn’t want to dance around Bill. He’s honoured but flashes a cheeky grin, _sorry, Scully, you know Halloween's where my heart’s at_. Or, he’s been thinking of driving up to see his mother. Or, it’s been twenty and suddenly twenty-five years since Samantha. Or, November is just a difficult month - but he doesn’t need to tell Scully any of these things -

Well, Maggie has still _always_ invited him. Not so this year.

Scully sighs against his collarbone and tightens her grip on him, scalpel-wielding fingers lining up along his ribs. _What are you dreaming, sweetheart?_ This is the best thing he’s ever had. Sometimes, he’s still not sure he really has it.

If he’s being optimistic, he might say they started dating with the baseball practice. The diamond he chose may have been unconventional, but his little red-haired shortstop hit for .400, got giggly on tequila, and kissed the life out of him in front of God and everybody in an empty Georgetown street. Oh, so there was the cab driver.

Since brain surgery, Diana, and _touchstone_ in September, then, they’ve been - seeing each other. Staying over, sleeping together, making sweet, sweet love; _Mulder, that’s saccharine_ , she tells him, well, the thing is - the things is, they’ve been making her a baby in a petri dish.

He cranes his neck to kiss the part in her hair, silk-soft copper trailing across his chest.

She keeps telling him something else, too; that she’s _not actually pregnant yet, Mulder, stop hovering_. The embryo transfer is tomorrow. There’s only a forty percent chance. Perhaps it is more than a little unfair of him, then, when he lets his hand drift lower to rest over the hot skin of her still-flat stomach; perhaps it is a little unfair to dream about babies, little league, and picket fences - but he’s seen her distracted and far-off, too, biting her lip to keep a smile in check, so careful with those the way she’s careful with her hopes and her happiness and her body.

She’s been on a strict diet with hormone shots on the side, confessing early on, _I don’t know, Mulder, I just don’t want to risk it when it is_ , and, well, the hormones also made her feel _different_ , so. So not so much, he’d shrugged, and they’ve since settled for shoulder rubs and feet massages, soapy handjobs during showers where she kisses him for all he’s worth.

All he's worth… everything that's worth anything, he thinks, is right here in this bed. _What are you dreaming, sweetheart?_ He _knows_ what he’s dreaming, but he can be thankful for just this, too.

She called her mother earlier in the evening, _sorry, Mom, I'll have to cancel our Sunday plans_ , no, nothing was wrong, just overdue paperwork from the last six months, apartment chores she'd neglected… now, she'd just assumed her mother was hosting Thanksgiving as always? Yes, what a shame Bill would still be at sea, but she’d look forward to seeing Matthew and Tara at least. All quiet on the Eastern front, too, as it were: nothing from Charlie in Europe, and Mulder saw her face drop for a second. Her mother would still have an extra seat ready, of course. Well, about that - _Mom, I'm going to bring Mulder_.

No, at the end of October, Maggie had not yet invited him for Thanksgiving - but now the digital clock on Scully's bedside table reads three red minutes into Friday 12th, and in less than two weeks he'll be celebrating the holiday with her family after all.

He holds her close.

-

On Saturdays she keeps giving up new little secrets for safekeeping, _here, Mulder, this is me, too_. He’s known about the laundry and the long baths for years now, of course: she used to get just this side of pissy when he’d drag her away on cases over the weekends. He’s known about the classical music since the beginning, too; a shy slip-up on one of their first cases.

He’s never woken up in her bed with Bach playing softly from the living room before.

He’s never crept into her kitchen at 9.30 to find her in bare feet, swaying on her tiptoes and humming under her breath. In the dim November light streaming in through the open windows she is an otherworldly creature, hazy and undefined around the edges. She is - translucent.

Might just be that his jaw drops; he knows he must make a sound because she whips around with one of those careful little smiles, and whatever that fabric is, it is sheer. _Very_ sheer. “Good morning, sleepy.”

“M'not sleepy, you're just up early too early,” he croaks out. Up too early and making scrambled eggs for wide-open windows, _do you think they can hear you listening to Bach down on the street, Scully?_ She's fresh-faced and freckled, the panes are frosted over. “It’s freezing in here, baby,” and that’s a Saturday-concession, too, those pet names. She shrugs, blinks, but God - she’s wearing this subtly embroidered _shirt_ ; it’s a white shirt, is what it is, but there’s quite a lot more to it than that. “Did you sleep alright?”

That’s how he’s learned to ask the impossible question of _how are you feeling_ this past week, and her answering hum is a variation of _I'm fine_ , maybe of _I’m okay_. He thinks they must combine into a little more side-stepping and a little more vulnerability both.

Through the shirt, he can glean the soft curve of her breast and then her hips as she turns back around to the stove and reaches for the pebber. She’s just a little intangible and so he’s drawn to her, a moth to a white-hot flame and messy ember-reds. Wraps around her, no longer afraid to burn. “Scully… what is it you’re wearing?”

She purrs, wrangles one arm free and stirs the egg mixture. “They are what’s typically referred to as pajamas, Mulder. PJ’s, jammies, what have you. Nightwear?”

“Huh.” _Pajamas_ are properly her silk and flannel sets, though, and _PJ’s_ and _jammies_ are kids’ clothes. Nightwear, women’s in particular, though… his Scully is wearing _nightwear_ on a weekend morning and he has to clear his throat. “I, uh… this shirt in particular. I like it.”

She presses back against him. “Mm, I can feel that.”

“Sorry.”

“No, don't be.” Eggs completely abandoned for a second, she leans back against him, reaches behind his neck, and draws him down until she can get at his mouth. They’re both bound for cricks and bad posture, but he’s sure it must be worth it. “It’s nice.”

Her lips are _nice_. She knows how to use them, too; lips, tongue, teeth, all of it. He’s never been so creepy as to ask her, but considering her usual enthusiasm he’s quite sure his pretty little Catholic girl enjoys going down on him: if the act hasn’t been part of their limited repertoire as of late, it’s because it feels a bit like an unequal transaction when all she gets in return is a sleepy snuggle. “S’not really fair, though, is it?”

“Lots of things aren’t fair. You’re very good with the massaging thing.” She shrugs within his arms, “besides, it’s not forever.”

An answer to the impossible _how are you feeling_ is impossible because it at any given time hinges entirely on what they’ll find out at the appointment on the 30th. On what’s going to happen after. He should ask if -

Scully has turned back to stove again. Never have scrambled eggs been paid this much attention outside of France. She exhales. “I called Mom earlier.”

Could mean a whole damn lot of things, considering. “Yeah?”

“Oh, relax. She’s glad you’re coming, you know,” she reassures, laying her head back against his chest again for a second. That… narrows it down, maybe. He settles for a nod, _okay, good, nice to know. What happened next?_ “I just promised we’d leave work early on Wednesday, bake some pies to bring.”

He laughs, kisses her, twirls her around and into the living room with no regard for the violas, until she’s giggly and flushed, until that torturous, flowing nightshirt of hers has become his new favourite.

The eggs end up a little over-cooked.

-

Scully had been twitchy when they left, asked for the car keys and handed over the pies, _I just need something to do_. Now she’s the perfect Auntie Dana, dutifully following Matthew on her knees whenever he grabs her pinky finger, stumbling on clumsy baby feet as he drags her off on periodical adventures in the room. “Dana, Dana, Dana,” he coos; the _Auntie_ part is all Tara’s doing.

Tara herself is a lot more tolerable without Bill around, Mulder has decided. Very much the proud mommy, but plain ol’ kind and surprisingly engaging, too: as the only _man_ available, he’d helped her bring in her luggage and found out through obligatory chatting that she minored in psychology. _Then_ they had a professional debate over coffee with Scully smirking from the sideline.

“He’s babbling _all_ the time, asking questions and everything,” Tara says now, beaming. “Bill’s managed to secure the next few months at home so he gets to be around for Matty’s second birthday and - you know, just really be here while he learns to talk.”

“That’s wonderful, Tara,” Scully exclaims, tapping Matthew on the nose. He shrieks in delight. “Do you hear that? Daddy’s coming home soon.”

As if on cue the doorbell rings, and Scully looks up at Mulder who can only shrug. _Daddy…_  Then Maggie calls from the kitchen if _Dana_ would _please take that?_ “Who - _oh,_ ” she starts, then jumps up to deposit Matthew in Mulder’s lap before she sprints for the door, wrenching it open and throwing herself at the man waiting outside. _Oh_ , indeed.

“Ouch,” Charlie grunts before returning Scully’s embrace, nearly lifting her off the ground. “You didn't get taller since last time, huh.”

She laughs. “Nice seeing you, too, _baby_ brother. Come on in, for heaven's - ah.” Sitting on the living room floor with the actual baby, Mulder hadn't even seen Maggie come out, but Scully whips around to stare her mother down. She does not look very threatening, or sorry, grinning like that. “You _knew_ ,” she accuses.

“I might have had an idea,” Maggie smiles softly. When she looks at her son, it turns wistful. “Hello, Charles.”

Mulder sees Scully squeeze Charlie's hand while he tightens his grip on her shoulder for a second, a one-two heartbeat whoosh. “Hi, Mom. Tara,” he nods in polite acknowledgment before his eyes finally land on Mulder. Who is still sitting with the baby in his lap. Possibly just _a_ baby, for all this estranged younger brother knows. “And you must be -”

“Mulder,” Scully breaks in. “My partner.” Another thing they decided on before leaving, both quite sure that Maggie would have them figured out anyway. _I just don’t want to make her feel entitled to her questions_ , Scully had said. For a second or two, Charlie looks like he feels entitled to his either way. Not threatening, just - curious. Teasing; like a younger sibling - and one who got to grow up.

“Mulder,” he repeats, rolling the _r_. “Glad to finally meet you.” He clears his throat, drags Scully a little closer and shares a look with her. _Teasing_ , definitely. “So… will we need to go a few rounds outside before the game, or do you think you can be reasonable?”

-

They don’t. Need to go a few rounds, that is. Though he’s built a bit like a linebacker himself, Charlie is amicable, bright, and contemplative - and anyway there isn’t much to fight about when they missed the first game and the damn Miami Dolphins are being decimated right from the kickoff of the second. Maggie will not allow any of her  _guests_ in the kitchen, though, so they dutifully watch football - some with even less enthusiasm than others, which is so far the most noticeable difference between Scully and her brother.

They sit glued together on the sofa, still holding hands, though Scully keeps looking over at Mulder with eyes that he for once can’t read. He thinks she might be apologising, but for what he has no idea. He shakes his head subtly; he couldn’t possible begrudge her this, any of it.

They say grace, eat Turkey, eat pie. After much consideration, he and Scully went all out with both apple, pumpkin, and pecan; the latter made according to Mulder's grandmother's recipe, and the praise it receives make him feel things. Like he has - contributed to the family. Brought them something other than conspiracies, death, and funeral wreaths.

Matthew seems to categorise his food as either potential projectiles or fingerpaint, and Tara enters mommy-mode again, keeps apologising profusely, says he usually doesn’t play with his food anymore, must be tired from the long trip, maybe it’s the new people -

Maggie brushes her off. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve had four of these. Billy didn’t learn to sit still while eating before his teacher began sending him home with notes. Melissa, then, was very well-behaved as a little girl, but instead she had all these increasingly obscured diets when she got older.”

“ _And_ ,” continues Charlie, looking straight at Mulder, “Dana kept dissecting every single vegetable more advanced than a potato well into her teens.”

Scully blushes as red as her hair but can’t keep from laughing with them, and God, does he love her teeth, loves to _see_ them. _This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for Scully’s teeth_ . “At least I _ate_ my vegetables,” she shoots back.

Maggie hums sagely.

Charlie smirks. “Still, did you _have_ to skin every single pea for eight years? How much different can one be than the other?”

“It’s the scientific method, little brother. You can’t draw conclusions based on an insubstantial amount of evidence.” Mulder finds himself nodding in support; with all the overdue requisition forms they’ve worked on for the past few weeks, he’s missed his strict scientist quite a bit.

When Charlie raises one eyebrow, he is very much Scully’s brother. “Eight years, though? _In-sub-stan-tial?_ ”

“Well, yes. Do you know how many peas there are in the world? It was important and, might I add, very peaceful work.”

This sibling-banter that he’s never had because Samantha was either an eight-year-old brat or _gone_ \- no, it is not that he isn’t envious at all, but mostly… mostly, he’s curious. Mostly, he just wants to know absolutely everything there is to know about _Dana_. Wants to take notes, wants to have stories to tell when -

There is no warning: Matthew only squeals _after_ the green bean has smacked against Mulder’s cheek. He thinks he hears Tara start to apologise again, but over everyone’s laughter, the only thing that rings clear is Charlie.

“Well, I suppose it would be preferable if you could steer the kid in the _peaceful_ direction.”

Scully with the teeth and the smile lines and the rosy cheeks, Scully already halfway through the motions of raising a napkin to his face, Scully secretly pregnant with their maybe-baby - she freezes, and for long enough that people other than Mulder might just notice. He taps her knee under the table.

-

Once they have finished eating, Maggie is only more than happy to finally let them out in the kitchen. “Come on, Mr. Special Agent Mulder,” Charlie insists, “we’re doing some dishes.”

Most of them in the old-fashioned way, as it turns out: Maggie is modern enough to own a dishwasher, but old-fashioned enough to have brought out the fine china for the occasion. Charlie, arms covered in suds up to his elbows, imitates his mother in a shrill voice: “under no circumstances do we put the Belleek in the dishwasher!”

And under no circumstances does the impersonation seem like Scully’s firm but loving mother, though really, what does Mulder know about Charlie’s? He knows if it were the other way around, he wouldn’t appreciate anyone else’s opinion; wouldn’t appreciate _oh, she doesn’t seem so bad to me,_ or _now, don’t be rude,_ or _surely you’re making it out to something it isn’t._ Not that Teena has ever lend herself to being made fun of so much as -

What it comes down to is that whatever Charlie’s story is, it is so very different from Mulder’s own.

“How’s Dana doing?” Charlie asks, hands over a wine glass. Mulder wonders at that; siblings close enough to squeeze the breath out of each other, close enough to _notice_ \- but not to ask. He finds that he is not surprised.

It’s Galway, the glass; makes him reconsider just how Irish Scully’s family really is, still. Will she sing their child to sleep with Gaelic nursery rhymes? If he is slow to answer, it is only, _only_ because he is devoting all of his attention to drying the fine crystal off without dropping it.

He watches the circular motions of Charlie’s incessant scrubbing, lets the glint of a wedding band on every upturn hypnotize him. Takes a chance.

“I think - we’ll be alright.”

-

When they get home, they dance through the witching hour, her in that enchanting shirt. He's made sure to let her know every single evening since Saturday how much he loves it, just in case she needed an incentive to wear it.

On Friday they bundle up in warmer clothes, drive up to Rock Creek Park and get their boots caked in mud. Their trench coats remain spotless for once, though, and Mulder finds himself trying to figure out the difference between Scully in black wool and Scully in white chiffon. They both like to kiss him, and they’re both so silent. They are both afraid to hope.

Saturday is for sleeping in, for apartment chores and grocery shopping, for Scully-time: she does not invite him to join her in the bathtub, but she leaves the door ajar. Comes out wearing panties and a t-shirt she’s stolen from him, damp hair curling and smelling like strawberries, like cherry blossoms.

Saturday is for leftover turkey sandwiches, for hot apple cider, for curling up in front of the fireplace. They have long since moved on from the hiss of _I'm fine_ to these low-frequency hums that translate into something like _please, hold me_ \- and yet on Sunday she is up before the sun, off to church praying for a miracle. He goes home to feed the fish and sort through mail.

-

“Skinner thinks -” he begins on Monday evening, then stops. Skinner _thought_ -

Scully lifts her head, raises up on one elbow to frown at him. “Did you _say_ something to him?”

“No, of course not.” He shivers when the sudden rush of cold air hits his chest. They’d been in a budgetary meeting; Mulder had stopped on his way out the door, _by the way, we’re taking another day off tomorrow,_ and their boss had stood up behind his desk again. _Mulder? A word, please._ And he’d thought - “Scully, he thought your cancer had come back.”

Looking out the dark window, she mouths something behind a curtain of hair.

“Hm?”

“ _My cancer_ , it’s just an odd turn of phrase. Not something I would particularly like ownership over, you know, the way I wouldn’t -” she purses her lips and sighs before lying back down again, draped comfortably across his chest. “What _did_ you say?”

He draws circles down her spine until he reaches the blanket, _what wouldn’t you, what wouldn’t you,_ drags it up to cover them again. “I told him it hadn’t. Nothing else.” He can feel rather than see the smile tugging at her lips moments before she turns and giggles against his collarbone. “That tickles.”

“Sorry. It’s stupid, though. He’s probably got us figured out for years.”

Skinner no doubt assumes that his two most troublesome agents are sleeping together, maybe even getting it on down in that distant basement office. Mulder actually wouldn’t put it past him to have bet money on it, but because he’s seen them follow each other to Antarctica, to the Bermuda Triangle, to wherever else - he probably also assumes that they love each other. He couldn’t possibly know that they’re having - trying to have - a child together.

Mulder bites his lip. “Maybe. Tell you what, though, your brother had us figured out.” At Thanksgiving, he had liked Charlie well enough, but he’s been a little - perplexed, since. Married with kids, but not bringing them for the holiday. Showed up for his father’s burial, but not for Melissa’s. Not when Scully lay dying. Still. “I didn’t know you were so close.”

She shrugs. “Just… younger sibling solidarity.”

“Yeah?” he says, thinks, _absolutely not_. He gently extracts himself from her grip, turns on his side to lie facing her, but she burrows into the crook of his neck and latches on with everything but teeth. “Scully, let me see you. Tell me about Charlie.”

It is minutes before she draws back far enough for eye contact. “Bill left for the Naval Academy at seventeen. Melissa left for Penn State at seventeen. Then it was just us. I’d help him with his homework…” for a while she stares at nothing somewhere around his chin. “Mom called a few weeks after I’d started medical school, said - said Dad and Charlie had had a big fight, that he’d practically run off back to San Diego to live with a high school friend. I had - very sporadic contact with him until Dad died, but then when Melissa…” _then when Melissa_ , neither of her brothers showed up.

He knows she thinks Bill blames her, but he'd at least been deployed; Scully could pretend that's all it was. Charlie - just stayed away. He tries, “sounds like there must have been a lot more to it than a single fight.”

She huffs, “isn’t there always,” and Mulder thinks, _no, sometimes your sister just disappears and it’s your fault_. Hates himself a little for it. “Youngest child in a flock of four, got all the hand-me-downs, had to listen to his older sisters except when Bill said otherwise - which he’d do on the days he hated girls.” She twists onto her back, keeping their legs tangled. Laces her fingers through his somewhere over her heart. “Dad - had this thing with Bill whenever he shipped out. He’d tell him, _you’re the man in the house now_ , but even though Charlie was supposed to be Mom’s baby he was probably also pronounced _a_ man at age four, and then… Dad just wasn’t there.” She looks at him. “Only his expectations were.”

 _Always with the expectations, Starbuck._ “Who are you really talking about now?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Shut up. Ahab -” she starts, and Mulder wonders whether she’s even conscious of the shift, of _why_ she does it, “- had expectations of all of us, they were just different, and we dealt with them differently.”

If Bill Jr. ticked them off in order like checkboxes down a paper, then Melissa crumbled hers up, folded it out, and read the answers to life’s greater questions in the creases. Rolled a couple of joints with it, later. Dana with the braces and the brains read hers through, said, _I can do better_ , and _did_ do better - until it got too boring. Until she joined the FBI.

And Charles, then - Charlie got halfway through his list before he crossed the rest out, left it in Dad’s office, and ran away.

Mulder’s own dad send him off to Oxford, paid his rent, told him to always use a condom. “Makes me and Samantha sound like the lucky ones.”

She pushes him onto his back and rolls on top again, kissing him on the mouth, across his cheekbone, down his jaw. “Don't ever say that.”

-

It’s past midnight before she falls asleep, but he still can’t seem to. He watches the fine hairs on her arm raise as he ghosts over them, tries counting them. At half past two he really, really needs to take a leak.

When he comes back she’s wide awake, eyes and tear tracks shining. Humming, _please, hold me_.

He does. “Honey, it’s -” _it’s not alright_ , “we’ll be alright.”

“I know,” she shakes her head like she doesn’t, “I know, I know, I know, I just keep thinking - what if - if it hasn’t taken.”

 _If it hasn’t taken_ , if she’s not pregnant, if they’re not having a baby… the first option is easier.

“Scully, if it hasn’t taken…” he swallows. “I realise this is a horrible time to bring it up, though I think it’d be worse tomorrow. If it hasn’t taken, but - but you want to try again… just promise me not to let money be an issue.”

She sobs, blinks. “Mulder, I’ve - I’ve used up my savings, I don’t have -”

“But I do.” Her eyes widen. He wants to tell her, _my Dad left me blood money, left me hush money, left me thinking a family just wasn’t in the cards for me; if I can contribute here, please let me do it._ He tells her, “Scully, you asked me to father your child. I’ve - been figuring we were going to raise that child together. I want to do this.” _Please, let me do this_.

She sobs again, before pressing even closer. “I’m not sure if… if I can do this again, but I’m - God, Mulder,” and this time it’s strangled laughter and hot tears against his neck, “I promise that.”

**Author's Note:**

> say hi on [tumblr](https://catarinquar.tumblr.com)!


End file.
